Sermon Tone Analysis

17 For it is better to suffer for doing good,

if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

I.

The Work of Christ

Now before we start unpacking the work of Christ, let’s consider the context, again before we look at the purpose and effectiveness of Christ work.

Remember Peter is writing to who?

The suffering church of Asia Minor.

Those who have been saved and , if necessary have been grieved by various trials.

Those who endure sorrows while suffering unjustly, Those who do good and suffer for it.

Peter is writing to the believers to encourage them.

So he follows verse 17 where he reminds them is it God’s will if they suffer with verse 18

For Christ also suffered.....

We know it was the will of the Father to crush Him.

We know if Christ suffered those who follow Him will suffer.

We know Christ sufferings were only temporary, so our sufferings are only temporary.

We know Christ suffering resulted in glory, so our sufferings will result in glory.

We must remember that even though Peter explains Christ “also” suffered, Christ suffering is far superior than our suffering.

Christ does provide us a perfect example of how we are to suffer, but the point and effect of His suffering and death is way more than anything Christ’s followers could ever accomplish.

The suffering and death of Jesus was the will of the Father and the standalone work of the Son.

The death of Christ was the purpose Christ came, and it was accomplished for a specific people whom God foreordained to salvation.

A. Christ’s atoning work

For Christ also suffered once for sins,

NASB For Christ also died for sins once for all,

Here Peter points us to what I would consider the most painful part of Christ’s work.

Here the verbs used to describe the atoning work of Christ,

He suffered,

He died,

Jesus Christ not only humbled himself by leaving His heavenly throne and taking on the form of a servant, being born of no reputation, born of a young Jewish girl, he began his life in a manger, in a barn, couldn’t even get a hotel room.

He was born in a barn, laid in a feed trough, and unless they are a lot different than they are today, he was born in the midst of flies, filth, and farm animals.

He was born into suffering.

However that was only a small taste of what was to come.

Even as small boy they were on the run, because Herod wanted him killed.

They fled to Egypt tying to escape the evil ruler of His age.

But this still would not be the pinnacle of His suffering.

Think for a moment about Christ inauguration into his Messianic office.

After His baptism, he heard the Father thunder from heaven, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, then what happened.

He was led out into the wilderness where he fasted for 40 days!

Talk about suffering, we can’t go without eating for 4 hours, much less 40 days.

Imagine the hunger pains, the weakness that would come as the days progress.

Then Jesus took on a direct assault from Satan.

Imagine that, not a one of us is important or dangerous enough to the principalities and powers to cause Satan himself to tempt us.

We are defeated enough by our own flesh, and the ways of this world, Satan doesn’t need to come fool with us....

Again, none of this suffering would be the apex of Christ suffering and his atoning work.

It wouldn’t be until His walk to Calvary that His suffering to atone for our sin would begin.

This is where Christ truly took on the punishment you and I deserved!

Think about it though, he was the only one worthy, the only one able, the only one willing to work to the point of death for our sin.

Consider the cruelty and brutality of Jesus’ work of atonement.

Listen to,

Isaiah 52:

He was beaten past the point of recognition.

Isaiah

Matthew 27:27

Matthew 27:45

Matthew

Jesus work of suffering and death was prophesied of, played out on Calvary, and proven as he was buried in a borrowed tomb.

But here is the beauty of the atoning work of Christ, he suffered once for sins or as the NASB renders it, died once for all.

There is a completeness, a finality, and a specificity to Christ atoning work.

Here we see the point to Christ atoning work, His suffering, His death was for sin (Penal) for that which deserves punishment.

Albert Martin explained, “If we do away with the fact that God is creator and lawgiver and man is morally accountable to God and sin is that which provokes God’s wrath and warrants God’s punishment (Penal) then the sufferings and death of Christ are indeed at best an unanswerable riddle or at worst a cruel and sadistic joke.”

It only took him one death to accomplish the atonement.

He only had to go to the cross one time and it was finished.

Every sin and every sinner that Christ intended to die for was completed at that very moment.

For it was the will of the Father to crush Him, only once!

One time and it was complete, one death for the sins of many.

He did not have to go back, he did not miss a few when he offered himself, Christ atoned for the sins of all those whom God had predestined to repent and believe!

This leads us to our second point of Christ work,

B. Christ’s substitutionary work

the righteous for the unrighteous,

NASB the just for the unjust

The guiltless for the guilty

The sinless for the sinner

The Holy one for the unholy

The One who fulfilled the law for the ones who transgressed the law.

The Lamb for the goats

The Son of Man for the sons of wrath.

Do you get the picture?

Christ,

How can sinners like me and you who are guilty before God be made right with God?

How can God be both just and the justifier?

How can God be holy, just, and merciful?

By crushing Jesus in our place.

By taking on flesh living the life we could not live and dying the death that we could not die.

Our sins are paid for through this substitutionary work of Christ.

Why did He do it?

How did He do it?

He accomplished the atonement, the penal substitution through,

C. Christ’s Reconciling work

that he might bring us to God

Peter in His unpacking of the work of Christ now turns to Christ ministry of reconciliation.

Jesus suffered and died in order that sinners like me and you might be brought to God.

Our transgressing of the law, our rebellion against our creator has caused us and all of humanity to be separated from God.

Instead of being sheep cared for by the great sheep we are straying sheep wandering from the fold of God.

We are runaway children who refuse to come home.

The problem is also that we cannot return and be reconciled because of the great chasm our sin has created between us and God.

Because or our sin which began when Adam sinned, death, judgment, and wrath is our portion.

Every since creation sin has brought on death.

When sin occured there had to be a sacrifice.

In the garden what happened?

Adam and Eve fell and animals had to be killed for coverings.

When we get into the Mosaic covenant, bulls, goats, rams, and birds were sacrificed for to reconcile God people to Himself.